Networks Are Caught Up in Ratings Battle

The current rating sweeps race has turned into a bitter -- and bizarre -- competition to load screens with Michael Jackson.

ABC and NBC are scheduling Jackson specials to run opposite each other Monday night, while questions are being raised about Fox’s decision to pay for still more competing Jackson footage.

Sources say ABC, whose Feb. 6 Jackson profile by British journalist Martin Bashir was last week’s most-watched program, has gained the right to repeat that program Monday, preceded by another ABC News special regarding Jackson. That pits the encore showing directly against NBC News’ “Michael Jackson: Unmasked,” which the network expanded from an hour to two hours Thursday.

The last-minute maneuver by ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co., is said to have outraged officials at General Electric Co.-owned NBC. ABC has little to lose with the move, which requires preempting its Monday-night roster of dramatic programs -- which have attracted dismal ratings -- just three weeks after revising that lineup.

Various competitors, meanwhile, are privately criticizing Fox’s judgment in paying a reported $2 million for Jackson’s footage allegedly rebutting the Bashir interview, which is being assembled as a prime-time special titled “Michael Jackson Take 2: The Interview They Wouldn’t Show You,” to air Thursday.

In addition to footage shot by Jackson’s own camera crew, Fox has acquired and plans to excerpt video from a three-hour interview with Debbie Rowe, Jackson’s ex-wife and the mother of two of his three children.

Portions of the Rowe interview, which was conducted by the tabloid newspaper the Globe, have already been seen on syndicated entertainment magazine shows, including “Entertainment Tonight” and “Access Hollywood.”

Beyond the saturation coverage of Jackson, Joe Saltzman, a journalism professor and associate dean at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, criticized the initial ABC broadcast as “shoddy journalism,” citing its inclusion of Bashir’s perceptions regarding Jackson and his mental state.

“This is the kind of journalism that gives journalists a bad name,” he said. “It’s just incredible. How can any of this be news?”

CBS, meanwhile, a unit of Viacom Inc., is still pursuing its own “60 Minutes” piece on Jackson, despite reports that Jackson stood up correspondent Ed Bradley, who visited the singer’s Santa Barbara estate Saturday intending to conduct an interview.

Networks endeavor to boost ratings during sweeps months because television stations rely on the data compiled to negotiate advertising rates.